Current Marketing Thoughts

Grains Make a NIce Rally and More Production Problems Out of China

Feb 25, 2011

Wild day today with corn going limit up one time and finishing strong. Beans and wheat both finished up big as well. Obviously the big news today, the trade put a lid on crude oil as Saudi Arabia announced they are going to up production to make up for shortages do to production problems in Libya and other parts of the Middle East. USDA export sales were higher than expected for corn and wheat with beans still lagging behind. Of course this morning the USDA did flash news that China stepped in and bought 165,000 tons of soybeans. I did want to catch you folks up on some possible production issues that are now being released out of China.

MUST READ...China's Years Of Pollution Could Actually Cost Them A Huge Portion Of Their Crop

China's poor farming practices and years of polluting their land may have finally caught up with them. The news is just starting to surface, but from what I was told last night millions of acres of Chinese farmland could actually be polluted with heavy metals. The Chinese government may have actually know of the problem since 2007, but have been able to keep a tight lid on things until now. Sources claim that 12 million tons of grain may actually need to be destroyed or may have already been destroyed in the past few months. The story circulating is that China had been pressed to build massive irrigations systems several years back to eliminate ongoing drought issues. The land and water sources where the water was pulled from was later found to be highly polluted with heavy metals and other toxic substance. The authorities, at all levels, have tried to hide the problem even though cases of pollution and pollution-related diseases, above all in children, have been breaking out like wildfire. There have been documents uncovered that former Land Minister Sun Wensheng warned the government in 2007 that at least 10% of China's 295 million acres of farmland were actually contaminated by heavy metals, toxic pollutants, and cancer-causing cadmium. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Environment Minister Zhou Shengxian were put on the spot and have promised to start some type of clean-up campaigns after admitting that metal poisoning had become much worse than they had ever anticipated. Supposedly the Environment Ministry, yesterday announced on its website a plan to tackle pollution in 14 heavily affected provinces. However, in typical Chinese political fashion it refused to provide any details about how much damage and how extensive the problem has become. The plan and details of the problem are still being considered a national secret. If this is true it could certainly be the "smoking gun" that China has been trying to cover up, and could ultimately let the cat out of the bag. If it hasn't happened yet, I can almost guarantee you China's poor environmental practices will ultimately catch up with them.

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